, 1887-05-31
A Tribute to the Dead.


There is a life that men may live,
" hich to posterity shall give
An heritage OF priceless worth
More noble than a royal birth.
There is a death that men may die,
hen loud rings freedoms battle cry
Where unseen hands write Honor, Fame,
To These Are Due" above each name.
Men have not lived nor died in vain
Who at their country's call awoke.
And marched to fall on crimsoned plain
Whose souls went up through battle smoke.
When liberty Imperllled stood
With fearful eye, where heroes fell,
To save her. pouring ont their blood
In war and deaths dread carnival.
To-day a monument has been
Dedicated by us 10 men
WhD bravely fought and perilled life,
In that long fratrlcIdal strife.
They died, and on yon h Il repose,
Unmindful now Of friends and foes.
And may that monument OF stone
stand there through the long interluds
From now till time shall totter on
The stalls of gray decrepitude.
Put we build In air,
In no or OF OR heroes dead,
May crumble. and no vestige there
Be left, around or overhead.
To mark the spot where sleep the brave
VINO persisted for a natiou's life
Who. all that men can give, they gave,
On ret historic fields OF strife.
What tribute can a nation give
To those who for their country die?
Though gone, still in the heart they live,
While years and decades swift roll by.
Their record none can e'er enace
Nor shall the flight of time corrode
The monuments that men shall place
In mem'ry DER their last abode.
AS comrades OF those who have mustered DER,
Meath The palm tee SHADE on the twilight
shore.
Who, reaching the outposts one by one,
True countersigns gave to the picket wan,
That, pacing his beat with a noiSeless tramp,
His v gil keeps by the mystic camp,
We have gathered to-day. though a broken
band
OF veterans, who fought to preserve the land,
To jewel wi h tears each little mound.
Where the dust OF Il brother lies meath the
ground.
Pansies from natures ample breast
We scatter where the heroes rest,
Emblems OF an unchangiI 6 love
Which born on earth, reaches above
Their memories we perpetual,
And lay this tribute at their shrine
Each year, till Father Time shall date
Our muster on the distant line.
Where johnson sleeps we. ~listless, stand
Pause by tue side Of Van DeSande;
From Poulton's mound we silent draw
Round Bryant's grave by ollerenshaw
Where Lynot, Fritz and hyan lay.
Gre, gan and Roberts, until day
Shall dawn, and where Russell, Lefier.
SIN tn and whipple sleep, and Taylor
And all the rest. We strew each grave
With flowers DER the slumb'rlng brave.
Sometimes futurity's thin veil
Is lifted, like the ocean mists
When on its bosom sweeps the gale,
And men behold what ne'er exists
30 we Tonight may look beyond.
Fer list to roll calls yel unca led.
And countermarch u on the ground
Where souls from dust are disenthralled,
And naught but ashes fowly laid
Rest meath the soil whereon we tread.
The ieeting years speed fast away.
Yet ON each Decoration day
1 see you marching. Stern and slow
Out there upon the hill you go
In silence, and with mea ured tread,
To pay this tribute to the dead.
How fast they hy and now a score
OF years have passed, yet on the shore
OF time, still linger ng, you stand fast.
I see YOU there a little band
OF era y-haired men, but growing old.
For waves OF tune havo DER you rolled.
Respond you TO the sad roll cal
But no-soms answer, yet not all.